I was browsing my typical batch of favorite blogs and I came across a post that discussed how to use Dropbox to centralize sketches. Now, this is a great idea in my opinion as it allows me to work on the same file from multiple computers, back up the file, and keep a track of the different versions just in case I screw something up. Here is a screenshot of my setup and a link to the author’s site.

All you need to do is click on File -> Preferences in the Arduino IDE and browse to the location in your Dropbox folder that you want to use for your Arduino sketches. You can get a free 2gig account from Dropbox which may be plenty for most.

The MIT High-Low Tech Lab posted a tutorial on how to program an ATtiny45 or ATtiny85 micro-controller using the Arduino IDE. This functionality is accomplished by using a subset of the Arduino libraries to add a set of core runtime source files to support the ATtiny45/85. Matt Richardson of MAKE Magazine posted a video demonstrating how to use the Arduino IDE to program the ATtiny.

There is also an open source project called the “Arduino-Tiny” that enables Arduino users to work with the ATtiny84/44/24, ATtiny85/45/25, and ATtiny2313.

** Update ** This tutorial has been updated for the Arduino IDE V1.0 and includes some updated commands. Check it out here.

I wrote this application to test the Hobbybotics Motor Controller. This application controls the motor controller over the serial port by way of a micro-controller. Take a look at the project page for more details. You can find it here.

I’m working on several projects that I want to include a voltmeter to monitor battery levels. One of the easier methods is to use a resistor voltage divider network and a zener diode to scale the input voltage to a value safe for the Analog-to-Digital (ADC) pin. I developed a voltage divider calculator in C# to help me determine the correct resistor values for the selected voltage range I would like to measure. You can find it here.

Adafruit sells a really nice touchscreen and shield for the Arduino (other microcontrollers welcome). They also provide a library for the Arduino that makes the touchscreen easy to use. I want to use the touchscreen to develop some custom menus but, found it difficult to figure out RGB color codes. So, I wrote a little C# program to take care of that for me. You can find it here.